One of the potential bad side effects of Trump’s extortion of Ukraine was said to be undermining the bipartisan support for Ukraine v Putin.

So the Republicans are now making it happen.

Republicans on the House intelligence committee appear to be using their questioning time to add credibility to the baseless conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. (The US intelligence community has thoroughly confirmed that Russia interfered in the election.)

Meanwhile Fox News is doing its thing.

Fox News has so far done its best to present Bill Taylor’s testimony as un-explosive.

As the rest of the media has marveled at Bill Taylor’s statement that Trump “cared more about investigations of Biden” than Ukraine policy, and that a Taylor staffer overheard a Trump phone call where the president asked about “the investigations”, much of Fox News’ coverage has adopted a “nothing to see here” approach.

Across television news coverage, CNN, ABC and MSNBC have repeatedly changed their chyrons to represent the latest revelations from Taylor and George Kent’s testimony, Fox News has kept its own on-screen text staunchly neutral: “TAYLOR AND KENT TESTIFY IN FIRST IMPEACHMENT HEARING.” It was also the only channel to cut to an adbreak as Adam Schiff began questioning the two officials.

Subtle.